A Treasure Island Birthday Party and Treasure Hunt

Zack initially wanted to have a "regular" birthday party this year. I guess by regular he means no theme?  I guess that's a clue that my asking him what theme he wanted was not going to work!  When I started talking pirates instead, he was all for it.  I was excited too until I realized that everything pirate has skull and crossbones all over it.  It's not that I'm anti-skull and crossbones.  See, there is one in the picture.  But I didn't want absolutely everything covered in skull and crossbones images for a five year old (ok, six now).  I'm trying to hang onto his youth!

So, we made it into a Treasure Island party.  Zack has a children's illustrated abridgment of the novel Treasure Island (sorry, I don't have a link to the abridgment we have) that we read to him last summer and he still loves it.  I even got him a matching coloring book at Christmas.  I hadn't read the story until I first read it to him.  I followed up by reading the full version myself and thought the children's version was well done.  It just came from the bin at Hobby Lobby so it was totally affordable for a party favor!  We gave that to the big kids and the matching coloring book to the younger siblings.  It was fun to give something we have a personal attachment to.

We were out at garage sales (at Zack's request) when we noticed the boys playing around with a pile of something that looked like it would make a ship.  I did a double-take, envisioning the centerpiece it could make.  James was so shocked at my interest in a giant plastic toy that he almost fell down, but the boy selling it said he thought most of the parts were there so we piled it all in a box and left with it for the super bargain price of $7.  James had to figure out hot to put it all together.  Check how it turned out:

There is a Jolly Roger at the very top that doesn't show in the photo.  It has maybe eight different sounds it makes, multiple trapdoors, cannons that flash and shoot little darts, a breakaway side, a lifeboat, a treasure chest, barrels and more.  It's quite an impressive item (it appears to be the large ship from this set with different sails) measuring 30 inches long when assembled!

I had fun with the invitations but forgot to save one so I can't show the finished item.  I can show the inside, which has the map from Stevenson's book as a watermark in the background.  Isn't that fun?? I was pretty tickled with it.  It was printed on tan paper and then folded and decorated to make it look like a treasure chest. The treasure chest look was created by stamping with a woodgrain background stamp, inking the edges, rounding the top corners and adding some darker vertical strips to the outside.  The lock was an office supply brad glued onto the top so that when closed, the brad overlapped the bottom part (clear as mud?  I really need a picture here! Oh well.).

Now, here's the problem:  I put this text about looking for treasure on the invitation... so I was compelled to come up with some kind of treasure hunt!  Aaack!  I didn't know how to do a treasure hunt.  I stressed and wrung my hands about it for the entire time between writing the invitations and the night before the party.  I got great input from friends and family but I had this vague sense in my mind that I wanted it to follow the book and didn't know how to make that happen.  I kept putting it off - preferring to stress and complain rather than do something I guess? - until the very last minute.  James took the children on an errand and I told myself, "I must figure out the treasure hunt right now in case I need James to pick up anything."  I sat down and wrote the whole thing in about an hour and came up with something we loved!  Now why couldn't I have done that two weeks before and saved myself the anxiety??

The Treasure Hunt

If you would like to see how the treasure hunt was done, here you go. 

The uncut piece of paper was a list of numbered instructions I read, one at a time.  Each gave a bit of narrative and a hint where to find the corresponding clue.  Each clue was a strip of paper that gave a little bit of the story. 

We did them in order, revealing the basic (slightly nice-ified) plot of Treasure Island.  When we had all the clues, we fit them together in order and taped them, then turned the taped paper over to reveal the simple riddle of where the final treasure was hidden.

The papers were all just printed on tan cardstock with the Stevenson Treasure Map in the background.  I used the Blackadder ITC font for a cool pirate-y look, though even the readers couldn't always read the script lettering. 

The treasure box was a hinged top shoe box (Nike) that I painted brown and added some horizontal black brushtrokes to make it wood-like.  I painted a lock with gold - all cheap craft acrylics.  We filled it with little mesh bags of chocolate gold coins, one for each kid, and glow bracelets. Pretty fun stuff.

Our final activity was dessert.  Instead of cake we served Treasure Sundaes with ice cream, various syrups, crushed oreos and gingersnaps, peanuts, walnuts, m & ms, sprinkles, whip cream and cherries.  Good times!

Happy Fifth!

It is hard for me to process that I am the mother of a FIVE year old!

Zack had a Biscuit Brothers Birthday, complete with concert-ticket invitations, guitar-shaped cake, farm-type food, bandanna-fabric napkins and shoebox banjos. If you don't know the Biscuit Brothers, they have a locally filmed PBS show about a musical farm. It is about elements of music, introduces classical pieces, and has a lot of fun folk music. Zack really loves them. We went and saw them in concert, and then saw them again on location where they film.

The concert invitations were really fun. I was a little overwhelmed with the thought of making them, so my sister designed them for me, then I printed them, embossed the No. 005 (for the fifth birthday) and added perforations to create a ticket stub look. Hey, she'll make them for you too!

We served ham and biscuit mini-sandwiches in a big chicken-wire basket, fruit, veggies and herb dip, and deviled eggs. What's more farm-like than deviled eggs, right? James had the idea to make the guitar strings into the Happy Birthday writing. I really thought that made the cake.

Our craft was just right for a small group. If it had been any more kids, I would have had to do more prep ahead of time, but as it was they did their own while I demonstrated, making one for Sammy. The idea was an imitation of a cigar-box guitar, but without the tobacco smell or power tools. We used shoeboxes with a hole in the front and at the end, plus some sturdy doubled cardboard for the handle. The rubber bands just wrap around the box rather than going up the neck of the guitar. Once we added those bridges (cut from a dowel), the sound was surprisingly good for just some rubber bands.

And the soundtrack for the party was really, really easy to select.

Happy Birthday to Zack!

Swap

Have you heard of a clothing swap party? I hadn't, but now that I've been to one, I'm a fan! Two of my friends had one this past weekend with about a dozen girls in attendance (by girls, I mean us. Don't tell me I'm too old to be a girl). It was so much fun.

I brought two very full bags of clothing... and left with two less-full but much more attractive clothing! We had a grand array - two long garment racks plus two couches and the mantle full of dresses and blouses, shelves of sweaters, rows of shoes, a few purses (and one belt I snatched up), and pants, pants pants. The (very large) dining table was full of pants four pairs deep! People brought as much as they wanted (or their friends sent with them). We chatted and snacked for a while, then it was shopping time. James asked me if we took turns. Took turns - HA. It was busy bees, searching through, grabbing, and trying on, taking what didn't work to the next person and having them try it because it was too long or whatever. Our lovely host had bedrooms set up for people to go change, but I couldn't stand to be away from the action. There were long mirrors and lots of second 0pinions on what looked great.

I'm psyched about the great stuff I got - even a well-fitting pair of jeans (plus three blouses, three sweaters, three sleeveless tops, a skirt, a pair of shorts, a pair of capris, a cami and a belt). Score! The atmosphere was really fun. I wondered how sizes would work, but of course it wasn't a problem. Most of us are moms and have been up and down through a few sizes, so there was a varied selection. And at the end of the night there were probably six big boxes of clothes left to donate to Safe Place.

They are having another party in the fall - I'm already excited!

Party Favors

I've had to remind myself repeatedly this past week that I like making things. I picked something to make for party favors because I wanted to. It's that trying-to-have-more-homemade thing. In general, my urge to re-purpose things, to make things myself, to have a result that wasn't industrially extruded seems has been growing stronger over time. But I have to say that it came close to being extinguished after this little project.

It's an easy project. I just made too many of them. I had a lot of fun up to a point, and then I just got stressed with it. So, if you make these, make a couple, not 26.

These are activity pads. They are like a clipboard, but instead of a clip, there is a ribbon tied through the pages. I chose them because it was something I wanted to have for my kids. I wanted a small format and stiff backing for Zack to color on at the doctor's office, in the church pew, or in his carseat. I wanted to make him a bunch of mazes since he's maze-crazy these days. And after seeing the great hand-drawn artwork from flipflops&applesauce, I was itching to draw some coloring pages. After working on my own, I can see how very well done hers are!

The backings of these are old boardbooks that I picked up at Goodwill and cut apart with a box cutter and punched with a regular hole punch. Then I covered each with scraps of fabric I already had using elmer's glue. The edges of the fabric are wrapped around the edges then covered by a sheet of paper. I drew some of the pages and made the others on the computer, adding hand-drawn borders or woodland creatures.

Lucky me, Office Depot sent me a free $10 copy card in the mail, which covered all the copies with some to spare. And, they had a large paper cutter, so the cutting was super fast. Here is my excellent helper, James' mom, punching and collating pages!

And here are the finished pads. Zack promptly did all his pages and I'm supposed to make him some more!

One Year!

Happy First Birthday, Sammy!

This weekend we had a party for Sammy's first birthday. It was a come and go brunch on Saturday morning. We scheduled it that way for a couple of reasons. First, the kid birthday party circuit can get to be a little much. It seems that once you have a couple of kids in this age range, there are birthday parties every weekend, sometimes more than one, and it can feel like it's taking over. So, while we wanted to celebrate, we wanted to make it easy on our friends too. Also, for a while now James has been wanting to have a of get-together that includes people from different aspects of our lives. This was a broad invitation list and we wanted to be able to manage the food and space. Finally, those are much better hours for Sammy than traditional party times.

We had just under forty people, but only two days before the count was just under sixty. So, we had a wee bit extra food (not to worry, it has a destination that is not the trash can!). I forced myself to keep the menu simple, so even with the large group it was one of the easiest menus I've done: we had pumpkin spice and 7-up cake, various fruit and quiche. The quiche was a modification from a recipe of my sister's. Everything was prepared the afternoon before with help with the kids and food from James' parents. The platters were arranged the morning of the party (and here I am doing it before I've got my makeup on!). Since nothing had to be cooked that morning or kept hot, it made for a low stress party morning.

The quiche was my favorite, so I'm sharing the recipe below. It's flexible and easy (don't let the length of the ingredient list fool you). We keep eating it and it's still good. A double recipe fed our just under forty (some adults, some children) at a come and go party. (Unfortunately, I made more than a double recipe, but as I said, it has a home to go to.) Sammy loves it too!

This was a fun party. It was nice to have revolving door of all sorts of friends. We were focused on Sammy's milestone, which makes sense of course. But it struck me that several people remarked that we had made it a full year. Or even that I had made it a full year. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's true. There are lots of important moments in the first year, but some of the days are long. There haven't been as many evenings that I was waiting for James in the driveway, ready to hand off the baby, as there were with Zack... but there have been some. And some rough nights, and some moments of frustration that I just don't know what to do for him. One thing I've loved about Zack is that it just keeps getting better. Part of it is that I loooove for him to be able to feed himself, dress himself, take himself potty (hallelujah), but also that he's growing into a truly interesting person. And while I've been told that the trend doesn't necessarily continue indefinitely (really? Thirteen isn't a universal delight?), in the last few weeks we've started to see more movement, more discovery and more communication from Sammy. It's awakened a sense that he's really developing, learning and doing more and more. Now that is something to celebrate!

Finally, there were party favors, but that will have to be a separate post!

Sausage Quiche
Serves 8 for a meal or 20 for snacks

1/2 lb. breakfast sausage
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 roma tomato, chopped
1 1/2 c. sharp cheddar, shredded
1T flour
6 eggs, beaten
12 oz. evaporated milk
1-4 T parsley, minced
3/4 t seasoned salt
1/4 t garlic salt
1 t black pepper

crust: 1 1/3 c flour, 1/2 t salt, 1/2 c butter (cold), 4 T ice water

For the crust, mix the flour, salt and butter in the food processor until it looks like coarse crumbs. Pour in the ice water with the processor running until the dough comes together as a ball. Press* into a greased 10" pie pan or 7x11" dish (I line the dish with wax paper so I can pull the whole thing out for easy cutting).

Brown the sausage and remove from pan. Cook the vegetables in the same pan. Toss together the cheese and flour, then mix with the sausage and veggies. Spread over the crust.

Mix the eggs, evaporated milk and spices. Pour over sausage mix. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until the center is set. Serve warm or chill and cut, then serve at room temperature.

To reheat, place cut pieces on a cookie sheet in a 375 oven eight minutes or until they sizzle.

*No need to roll this out on a board and transfer. The texture is slightly better if you do, but I don't think it's worth the extra trouble (sorry you bakers who are shuddering). I just press it in the pan and it's fine!

Man on the Moon

Zack has become very interested in space travel to the moon. He is specifically interested in the Niel Armstrong trip to be the first man on the moon, not just space or rockets or astronauts in general. He's always loved the moon. As an infant he wanted to stare at it like Kitten with her bowl of milk. As a toddler he and Daddy went out to look at it each night that they could, learning the names of the phases, which he would repeat in his barely understandable toddler speak. He still loves to be carried out in his jammies, with a delicious little thrill of knowing he should be in bed, to stare at it one more time. Is it that fascination with its beauty that drew him to the moon journey?



Whatever the reason, he has added the story his nightly ritual. After prayers he is tucked into bed, only to sit right back up to ask his Questions. They aren't even all questions and the answers are always the same, but he asks them without fail.

Mommy! I want to ask you some questions! When is it time to wake up? Eight o'clock.
Can I get up to go potty? One time.
Will you check on me two times? Yes.
Mommy! I have one more question I have everything I need I love you too! I love you too, goodnight.

I want to talk about something do you know what I want to talk about the man on the moon. What do you want to talk about it? I want you to tell me everything you can about it.

James will often retell the whole story for him, the tenderness of the time together overriding the importance of bedtime. That's usually more of a Daddy luxury; I find myself too interested in the inevitable lateness of the hour. Occasionally I lie down next to him and tell him the story, or have him tell it to me. It sounds markedly similar either direction.

We had a Mr. McGregor party selected and ideas had already begun fermenting in my brain when James asked him if he would rather have a Man on the Moon party. Ouch. I really didn't have any ideas for a Man on the Moon party. I don't even know what a Man on the Moon party is. The ideas did not ferment. I guess you need a starter idea for fermentation and I didn't have any. We were going off to Elk Camp, where we would be for his actual birthday, and the only time to have a party was the weekend after we got home, so everything really ought to be done before we left. But a week before Elk Camp I had nothin. I almost just cancelled it due to lack of inspiration. Finally I subjected James to a whining / brainstorming session about how I couldn't think of anything / well I had some little wisps of ideas. A letter theme coalesced immediately: M is for Man on the Moon. P is for Party, S is for Space, etc. That was at least enough to tie it together so I didn't have to give up on the thing.

I started very scattered listmaking. I had previously had a vision of getting everything all prepared and ready to go before we even left town. That vision was woefully unrealized, but I figured if I could just get the invitations out then I could plan everything else at Elk Camp.

Uhhhh.... how was I going to plan anything at Elk Camp while juggling babies in the backwoods??? Talk about unrealistic.

The last day I told my mom I HAD to come up with some ideas and plans. In five minutes of brainstorming we (she?) had the whole plan fleshed out. I hit the ground running when we got home! James was a peach doing the tasks I needed from him in the order in which I needed them done with a smile and a cheerful "What's next?" (it's possible he had been reminded... maybe once? let's say "once-ish"... that this switch from Mr. McGregor to Man on the Moon had been at his prompting). And thank the good Lord for Glenn. Our dear friend came in from Dallas just for the party and talk about helpful. Not only did he play with the kids and jump in on house prep, but he lent his artistic talents. I was really thrilled with the results. Party report to follow!